Constructing and operating microservices at scale: A CTO’s view
9 mins read

Constructing and operating microservices at scale: A CTO’s view


As The Innovator’s Dilemma tells us, at this time’s profitable organizations shall be more and more challenged to undertake new processes so as to thrive. For contemporary organizations that depend on software program improvement to maintain aggressive benefit, this ever-present want for change requires reimagining the methods improvement groups work. Right here at Priceline—one of many world’s most-frequented journey websites with thousands and thousands of month-to-month guests—meaning adopting not solely new and revolutionary applied sciences, however an entire new mindset round how we construct and deploy companies.

If we need to maintain success in a hyper-competitive market, we should help an entire new set of service supply methods, and that requires thoughtfulness and diligence on the a part of know-how management. Our all-star group of technologists has rallied round 12-factor app improvement, monorepos, trunk-based improvement, and dependency administration in an effort to steer know-how evolution within the journey business. However there’s a lot nonetheless to be finished.

Let’s think about container-based microservices. Enterprises are a lot farther alongside the adoption curve with containers and Kubernetes than was the case just some years in the past. In line with a 2020 Cloud Native Computing Basis Survey, the usage of containers in manufacturing is up 300 p.c since 2016. At the moment, 80% of Priceline’s whole product platform is operating in Google Cloud on containers and Kubernetes.

Many massive know-how organizations are starting to reap the advantages (and uncover new challenges) of this paradigm shift in software improvement, however many extra are simply beginning that journey. And the economics recommend that we’ll by no means make use of sufficient devops and SRE specialists to maintain up with the accelerating calls for of software program improvement. CTOs in all places should be asking themselves not solely how they will make their purposes extra resilient and scalable, however how they will put extra duty within the arms of builders with out overwhelming them with rote, guide work.

At Priceline, we developed a plan to modernize all of our purposes round a single set of ideas that put a deal with developer productiveness. Right here’s the how and why of that plan.

Switching to 12-factor to spur velocity and innovation

Though Priceline has been round for over 20 years, it nonetheless operates like a startup in some ways. Steady evolution right here just isn’t a luxurious—it’s important. Our prospects’ behaviors and wishes change incessantly, and our competitors is continually discovering new methods to match these wants. Consequently, our builders innovate every single day, whether or not it’s within the product, information, SDLC, or infrastructure, all whereas concurrently managing technical debt, software program reliability, and safety. It’s a gargantuan process.

The 12-factor methodology—the primary tenets of which revolve round declarative codecs, automation, and portability—permits our group to keep up a tradition of innovation by decoupling our software program from any infrastructure dependencies and guaranteeing that we aren’t locked into anybody cloud, information middle, software program, or companies supplier. This implies we are able to implement an infrastructure arbitrage atmosphere, and, over time, transfer workloads to any non-public or public cloud as the necessity arises.

The 12-factor methodology additionally requires tight dependency administration within the construct course of. This consists of what’s operating in our containers and the affect of modifications to these containers—be they modifications to the working system or to our personal code. The power to declaratively verify and instantiate our code early within the construct course of lets us validate modifications earlier within the delivery course of, resulting in extra innovation and decreasing the overhead that comes from unwinding points in manufacturing deployments.

Separating the construct and run processes permits us to conduct automated practical testing and steady deployment to additional guarantee velocity of our groups. Not solely does this improve developer productiveness and satisfaction, it permits us to extra rapidly take a look at and enhance customer-facing options, which finally leads to higher outcomes for our vacationers and our enterprise.

A customer-first strategy

Our modernization plan has enabled us to rework our information and platform, delivering wins to prospects and our enterprise. By with the ability to stream information in actual time, we are able to extra rapidly perceive—and reply to—the actions and behaviors of consumers on our platform. This permits us to raised personalize our suggestions for the place vacationers need to go and keep, and helps us rapidly experiment with new options and performance.

Utilizing a monorepo structure within the software program design course of has allowed us to make sure a constant buyer expertise. For instance, our checkout elements can now be constructed as soon as after which leveraged by a number of groups, reasonably than having a number of completely different checkout elements resulting in a disjointed expertise for the tip person.

Groups can add their very own options to these frequent elements, and our platform groups have full visibility into what’s occurring. Thus, it doesn’t matter what options are added to the checkout expertise, they won’t compromise our software program platform or efficiency metrics. Our monorepo structure additionally makes upgrades extra predictable, and shifts dependency administration into the design and improvement course of reasonably than discovering points in downstream deployments.

Disrupting software program improvement

Our deal with the 12-factor methodology, container-based microservices, and a monorepo strategy has superior the software program structure that powers Priceline’s product platform. The advantages we’ve seen thus far embrace:

  • Builders have higher management of how they design and develop software program, as they don’t seem to be sure to a different group’s dependencies or tech stacks.
  • We have now created a “developer first” mentality, thereby shifting a lot of the main tasks for the design and improvement into the arms of precise builders.
  • Builders are answerable for their very own productiveness. For instance, I can design and develop a characteristic that’s utterly remoted and has no dependencies on different items of my infrastructure.
  • Purposes are architected to construct on the advantages of cloud infrastructure, reasonably than merely being developed on-prem then shipped to the cloud.

The place we go from right here

Sadly, few of at this time’s instruments make it straightforward to benefit from methods like 12-factor or monorepo structure, and the software program improvement area just isn’t but the place it must be to see revolutionary, cloud-native improvement practices take off like they need to.

At the moment, solely probably the most subtle know-how organizations have folks and budgets to dedicate to the issue. At corporations like Priceline, with a mess of expert engineers, we are able to spin up DevX or platform groups to do one of these problem-solving at scale, however even this comes with a chance price, particularly creating new options for patrons. Most enterprises—and definitely startups, small companies, and legacy corporations present process digital transformation—shouldn’t have this luxurious in any respect.

Sooner or later we’ll see declarative, next-generation CI/CD tooling that allows all corporations to benefit from these capabilities in a means that doesn’t require them to rent groups of individuals. At Priceline, we’ve already begun by working with revolutionary startups on this area. Startups like Slim.AI and others are pushing the boundaries of cloud-native and are prone to change the way in which we do fashionable software program improvement at scale. Partnering with these new corporations is essential for any enterprise know-how agency to foster innovation.

In line with the 2021 CNCF survey cited above, “complexity” has joined “cultural modifications with the event group” as the highest challenges in utilizing and deploying containers. At Priceline, we now have been profitable in modernizing not simply our tech stack, however our tech mindset. The curve continues to maneuver outward, although, and the work isn’t finished. Our deal with developer productiveness will proceed to play a central position in how we enhance the shopper expertise and construct higher outcomes for our enterprise.

Marty Brodbeck is the chief know-how officer at Priceline. He has beforehand held high know-how management positions at Shutterstock, Pearson, Diageo, and Pfizer, and presently advises a number of startups within the cloud know-how business.

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